Tag: Palestinian Authority

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Trump administration is encouraging the Palestinian Authority to assume control of the Gaza Strip and leaving the door open for a role by Hamas in the subsequent Palestinian government.

But if such a move was once seen as a traditional predicate to a two-state solution, top Palestinian leaders are hedging their bets, saying they would not rule out a “one-state” solution in which Palestinians have the same one-person, one-vote rights as Israelis. Israeli leaders have long said that would mean the end of the Jewish state.

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer added his name as a co-sponsor of a bill that would substantially cut U.S. funding to the Palestinian Authority as long as it maintained payments to the Palestinians killed in or jailed for attacks on Israelis, all but assuring it becoming law.

“I am a proud co-sponsor of the Taylor Force Act because it aims to put an end to this disturbing practice, which only perpetuates the cycle of violence and undercuts the drive to peace,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement Friday.

NEW YORK (JTA) — I don’t know if there is a Yiddish or Hebrew version of “more Catholic than the pope.” More machmir than the rebbe? More kosher than glatt?

If there is such an expression, this weekend’s convulsion over a Jewish camp in Washington state raising a Palestinian flag deserves it. The angry reactions, and the camp’s apology for having raised the flag next to the Israeli flag, suggests oddly that American Jews are stricter than Israel and the United States when it comes to granting the Palestinians a national identity.

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Zionist Organization of America called on Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to resign over the State Department terrorism report that the ZOA called “bigoted, biased, anti-Semitic, Israel-hating (and) error-ridden.”

“This Tillerson State Department Report blames Israel for Palestinian Arab terrorist attacks on innocent Jews and Americans, ignores and whitewashes the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) ‘pay to slay’ payments to Arabs to murder Jews, among other travesties,” said a ZOA statement Monday about the report published last week.

In the report, the State Department listed as “continued drivers of violence” a “lack of hope…

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Barack Obama is gone and the relief among the Christian Zionists and their Jewish friends who peopled certain corners of Washington, D.C., this week was palpable.

Gary Bauer, the veteran evangelical activist, laid it out at the opening session of Christians United for Israel’s annual conference on Monday.

A year ago, “from one end of Pennsylvania Avenue to the next, we had people who were not blessing Israel, they were cursing Israel,” said Bauer, who was recently named director of CUFI’s Washington office.